Via Richard
"Today Trump supporters voice opinions that yesterday they may have been
unsure of or publicly afraid to acknowledge for fear of being alone
and called a “racist” or “bigot.” Likewise, today, Sanders supporters
voice opinions that yesterday they may have been unsure of or publicly
afraid to knowledge for fear of being alone and called a “socialist.”
Decades
of psychological studies help to explain this phenomenon. In one of
these experiments, the famous Asch conformity trials of the 1950s, test
subjects were far more likely to express a dissenting opinion, parting
from the norm when asked a question, if someone in front of them did it
before them, acting as the “enabling dissenter.”
Now
millions of Americans are shouting these fringe beliefs from rallies,
to college campuses, to endless tweets and uncomfortable holiday dinner
tables. Even if Sanders and Trump fade away, they will leave this legacy
behind. Long after their wild hair no longer graces the front pages of
newspapers, their equally wild ideas will flow through the news and in
the hearts of the masses. …
They
call this phenomenon biased assimilation. If people are given a little
legitimate support of their beliefs, they can deploy that against a sea
of contradicting evidence. If a potentially legitimate politician agrees
with a voter, that politician becomes the voter’s bedrock source. More
and more debate against that politician often just makes that bedrock
stronger.
Thus,
with the help of an enabling dissenter, an individual can stay strong
in a fringe belief. But an individual’s belief is even stronger as part
of an army of enabling dissenters.”
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